Oregon Trail on Facebook
Rating:

Way back in 7th grade I had a typing class. I went to a Catholic grade school, so our typing assignments were always typing Bible verses and other generally inflammatory texts. If we finished typing our pages early, however, Sister Mary Patrick was kind enough to let us play Oregon Trail quietly until the class ended. Oregon Trail is a game that I believe many of us look back upon fondly and it’s found it’s way onto Facebook Platform.

In Facebook fashion, the game’s Platform implementation differs slightly from the original version in that it focus on the social networking element. Users create a wagon and then, following the Facebook app trend, are required to recruit new members to the wagon. All the original features exist like hunting and bartering and dying of dysentery (a disease I have a miraculous penchant for dying from).

My problems lie mainly in the fact that the need to recruit more users to the app and the over-dependence on the wagon leader. I’m growing exceedingly tired of having to invite tons of people to applications. That shouldn’t be my responsibility. I feel like a spammer when put in this scenario and it raises some weird ethical dilemma for me. And as I said, the game is run entirely by the wagon leader, so a negligent leader makes for a pretty weak game.

All-in-all though the Oregon Trail on Facebook is a semi-fun implementation of the old classic. I’d recommend giving it a shot, but take it easy with the recruitment.

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